Unable to flash hard, batsman turns to pills
Manny Keitel is a young New Zealander with seemingly all the shots in the book. But he has one shortcoming, so to speak: when Manny flashes at the ball, he is unable to flash hard, in the manner recommended by many a coaching manual and commentator. Poor Manny's problem is that he flashes soft. This desperate young man has tried everything he knows to overcome this embarrassing problem, to no avail.

Thankfully, however, this story has a happy ending: Manny finally turned to a tactful family doctor, who recommended he take a small blue pill at least an hour before he went out to bat. The batsman has since been flashing happily away, and he has never flashed harder* outside off stump.

*Disclaimer: If you find you are flashing and flashing hard for a period of more than four hours, please consult your coach and/or doctor.

Hot Spot fails to detect irony of situation
In further evidence that Hot Spot technology is by no means foolproof, the imaging system has thus far also continued to fail to detect the irony of the situation for the BCCI.

"In the long run, this is even more problematic than undetected faint edges," said a BCCI spokesman. "I mean, how many times has an Indian player been on the receiving end of an umpire's decision due to his own board's intransigence on the matter? And yet we still haven't been able to see the irony in the situation to save our lives," he reasoned. "Clearly the technology's just too unreliable."

Unearthed Richard III skeleton actually shirtless Ganguly
A facial reconstruction of the recently unearthed skeleton thought to be King Richard III has revealed the bones as belonging to the body of none other than commentator and scrawny former Indian cricketer Sourav Ganguly.

"It was an easy mistake to make," said a red-faced forensic expert. "When we saw a pile of bones lying in a ditch, we just assumed they were, well, dead."

Ganguly for his part seemed bemused. "Last thing I remember doing is falling asleep somewhere on the way home after visiting a local tavern in Leicester with some old friends," said the Indian legend, who admitted to having taken off his shirt at the pub in a drunken re-enactment of his antics at Lord's in 2002, before blacking out.

What's in a name? Sunrisers Hyderabad
The IPL is replete with teams that have chosen meaningless, often embarrassing, names for themselves (face it, Chennai Super Kings: you sound like a brand of cigarette). So it comes as a refreshing surprise to see some apparent thought and consideration given to naming a team for a change.

It might sound obvious to say, but Sunrisers Hyderabad takes its name from the ancient Deccan folk tradition of sunrising. According to Wikipedia, sunrising is the art of arbitrarily and unimaginatively incorporating into the name of the team that of its out-of-state owners (in this instance, Sun TV Network). According to reports, the mascot of the Hyderabad team will consist of a famous stick figure painting that dates not nearly far back enough to the history of the game in the region and elsewhere.

Male commentators at women's World Cup found to be artificially deepening their voices
Male commentators at the women's World Cup have been found to be lowering their voices by as much as two whole octaves, according to a report. The study further found that the closer a male commentator was seated to his female counterpart or a player, the lower his voice dropped. Other changes observed include a penchant for laughing too loudly at a joke made by a female commentator or player, sending little love notes to a female commentator or player, and just trying too hard in general.

Maxwell on feeling like a million bucks
It has been learnt that Glenn Maxwell is considering embarking on a motivational speaking tour, to share with people the inner peace he has found on being sold for the highest price at this year's IPL auction.

"I just want to let people know that it really is possible to wake up feeling like a million bucks," said Maxwell. "You don't need to book yourself into an expensive retreat or abuse your body with yoga. All you need is a million bucks."

What's in a name? Duronto Rajshahi
No, seriously, what does it mean? Because I haven't a clue.

Pup grows up
In his acceptance speech for being awarded yet another Allan Border Award, Michael Clarke spoke about, among other things, his wish to be acknowledged as having outgrown his longstanding nickname of "Pup."

"I'm top dog now," said Clarke, "so I deserve to be called something more appropriate. Something like 'Wolf,' or 'Rex.'" Besides, added the Australia captain, he had finally stopped bounding after random cars for no apparent reason, and had put a halt to his irritating habit of chewing up all the shoes in the house.

Yawn!now a days thats how I feel when I read your articles.Stick to your old Ravi Shastri and Harbhajan Singh bashing.Atleast they may force a few laughs.

Posted by
Kalyan
on (February 8, 2013, 15:26 GMT)

pup growing up and the CSK name are the only good ones...the rest of the humor is too forced.

Posted by
Sabiaah
on (February 8, 2013, 13:04 GMT)

'DURONTO'...it is somebody's capability above the physical and logical strength....i don't think there is any single equivalent english for this term...

Posted by
Dummy4
on (February 8, 2013, 12:05 GMT)

Duronto means fast as well as rebellious and all of that ... See for example Duronto Express. I think it is the best team name around, certainly the most expressive, although somehow you have to love the "Franchise" based names of the Pakistani First-Class teams even more: Habib Bank Limited, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited, now that's a laugh. They should have more names like these ...

Posted by
Sarthak
on (February 8, 2013, 8:37 GMT)

Duronto is bit of all of these, quick, irrepressible, stunning. In my opinion among the better team names in world cricket... Lol, I was thinking the same about male commentators at WWC. They have mellowed!